


Three Stories Tall

by eggfish



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Slash, Realisations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 23:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20182699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggfish/pseuds/eggfish
Summary: It's something that starts with summer heat, with curiosity, with surprises on overly peaceful days. Or maybe it's something that started long before that. Even so, these moments are the ones they'll remember later.





	Three Stories Tall

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to my wonderful ESO team for being the best and getting me motivated to finish this fic draft (fun fact it's over a year old). And extra special shoutout to Penki for encouraging me, lending me her Keichi expertise when I was stuck, betaing, coming up with THIS title (which makes having written the fic feel worthwhile all on its own, I love puns ok) and generally being a blessing!!

It starts in summer - it starts with shirt-clinging heat and panic and Keito racing up five flights of stairs out into burning sunlight, his vision closing in on Eichi’s distant shadow, Eichi’s back. 

_Eichi,_ he shouts, gasping like a fish in the baking air, and at the very furthest edge of the rooftop, his childhood friend is waiting for him. He turns and smiles on-cue as Keito forces himself the last few steps forward. 

“Hey, Keito,” he says, voice light. “Sorry for worrying you.” It's an unreadable smile. The sunlight glitters above him, around him.

“You’re _not,_ Eichi,” Keito wheezes. “You’re not sorry, you’re an idiot - you’re an absolute mess of a problem child, who’s always getting into the worst kinds of trouble - and needs lecturing - and - _are you safe now?” _

“I am.”

“You’re not,” Keito says again, on reflex. “How do you know? What happened to the attacker who sent the death threat?”

Eichi tilts his head. “There was no attacker. It was just a prank in the end.”

“Oh, I - _Eichi,”_ he says, exasperation the only island left for him in a great wash of relief. He manages to fold his arms and even muster a glare at Eichi, though in this state he doubts it's more than a weak stare - ugh, why does everything have to be so difficult when it comes to his idiot childhood friend - he could nearly stamp his foot, he could nearly give Eichi the shaking he deserves. “Don't let this kind of thing happen,” he says sternly. “Don’t just - why are you _here?_ Just behave yourself, and stay where people can keep track of you; I was worried! _Everyone_ was worried!”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Eichi murmurs. “...It was a prank _I_ pulled on _you,”_ he adds, like it’s just a polite little clarification, and Keito stops. Squints. Goes blank for a long moment. Eichi grins at him, tight-lipped and smug. 

He exhales, readjusts his glasses to their optimal spot on the bridge of his nose, and achieves calm. "Before I start my lecture," he says, placing each syllable down slowly, "do you have anything to say for yourself? What made you think this was a good idea, Eichi? Why do you insist on treating me this way?" 

Eichi blinks. “You know why.”

“I don't know. But let me guess. Is it some idiotic attempt at teaching me a lesson - you get me all panicked over hypotheticals, then snatch the rug out from under my feet and tell me I was wrong for ever worrying - something like that?” He snorts. “As if that would stop me when you do so many deranged things that are entirely non-hypothetical - ” Eichi looks slightly nonplussed, which is a strange look on him. _“Eichi,_ listen to me,” he says.

And he reaches out to Eichi with the tips of his fingers, slowly brushing fair hair out of his eyes in a gesture that's part _look at me and take me seriously for once,_ part fondness. “You should know by now that nothing you do could ever stop me from worrying about you.”

Eichi’s eyes flit to that touch for just an instant, widen just a fraction, and cold fear spikes in the pit of Keito’s stomach because - 

because Eichi has never questioned this kind of habitual touch before, nor accepted his protectiveness without a childish pout, nor looked _nonplussed_ at a single thing that’s come out of his mouth since they were about six -

and suddenly Keito knows exactly why all of this has felt so odd, and he lets out a yell of pure and simple rage. 

_“You,”_ he yells, jumping back, _“Hibiki_ \- Damn it - " He can't believe he was fooled for even a second. He can't _believe_ Hibiki knows Eichi well enough to fool him for even a second. 

Hibiki pulls off his wig with a flourish, tosses it over his shoulder, and grins his widest, most dazzling grin. “To put an end to your little guessing game,” he calls out gleefully, “the correct answer was: we do it because we like you! No need to overthink, Keito-kun!”

“That’s bullshit! Hibiki, I’m going to push you off this building _right now!_ Try pulling another prank on me when you’re a pancake on the ground five floors down, you problem child!” 

Hibiki dims down a little, and - “Are you sure about that?” he asks again in Eichi’s voice, and Keito must have twitched because he bursts out laughing so loud it echoes, so loud the entire school can probably hear. Keito grits his teeth and tries to regain some composure.

Hibiki hops impossibly high up onto the railing at lip of the rooftop and begins pacing back and forth, pacing and monologuing, pacing and skipping and hopping precariously in a way that Keito _knows_ is designed to make him nervous, as if he wasn’t already sweaty enough in this heat. 

“Well, well well well! I have to say, this little switcheroo of ours worked very smoothly - right until I gave myself away! Ahh, what a shock that was. What a _failure!_ This Wataru Hibiki does not get to experience failure often… my, how admirable you are, Keito-kun! What an excellent, Amazing rival, to have provided me with such an excellent, Amazing moment…! I'm overjoyed...” And he clasps his hands together and swoons away _off_ the railing for an agonising moment before flailing even more agonisingly to regain balance. 

“But - ” Hibiki jumps down to stand level with him again. “I was truly surprised,” he admits. “It was not a mere misjudgement in the acting. I wasn't expecting such, ah, _heartfelt emotional sincerity - ”_

“Oh, quiet. It's your fault for pulling this sort of irresponsible prank,” Keito mutters.

“I am curious, however. Do you normally touch him like that…?” And Hibiki doesn't sound like he's teasing at all, now.

“Yes?” Keito pauses, mystified. “Don't give me that look, what are you on about - ” Then he realises and the cold fear kicks him in the stomach again. “It's not like that,” he says indignantly, and as he does so he experiences the most stomach-churning lurch of panic yet as he realises he’s never once in his life thought about whether or not that’s actually _true._

Hibiki only smiles. Oh dear. He and Eichi may have managed one fight but clearly they still needed to work on this _normal friendship_ thing, and urgently so.

“Eichi should be on his way here any second, by the way,” Hibiki says, glancing over his shoulder at the school grounds below. “I think I'll leave you two to it.”

“Oi, wait a second - ” 

_“Now,_ if you will excuse me...” And he takes one step - two steps - jumps backward up onto the railing, winks, and backflips out into thin air, all before Keito can get past the _sheer panic_ stage of his reaction. 

He’s still peering as far as he can over the edge, feeling slightly dizzy from heat and vertigo and trying to figure out why there is no Hibiki-shaped stain on the floor below, when he hears the rooftop door click open again. He turns, and his childhood friend is walking towards him.

“Hey, Keito,” he says, voice light. “Sorry for worrying you.” 

It's unmistakably the same line, the same smile. For a split second of distraction all he can wonder is whether the two of them took the time to plan all of this together, probably giggling foolishly as they parroted phrases back and forth for their final touch, or whether Hibiki really was able to predict Eichi's greeting down to the smallest detail. 

Strangely enough, neither option bothers him as much as it should.

\---

It starts with stories, of course, and with simple curiosity. 

That morning when he’d appeared to Eichi as himself - and it was a carefully crafted disguise, Wataru Hibiki doesn’t do things by half measures! - well, to start with, Eichi had just looked him up and down for a long time, motionless in his chair and expression unreadable. 

“What’s the matter, Eichi? Has something perhaps displeased you? Maybe you’ve spotted an inaccuracy I failed to catch?” he asked, in his normal Wataru voice, loading it with fake concern to hide the real worry he felt. He’d been waiting to see surprise on Eichi’s face, and an acknowledgement of his skills in mimicry - what had gone wrong?

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Eichi replied quickly, and he managed to smile too after a moment. “Anyone would be unnerved to meet their doppelgänger, Wataru. And I suppose I’m a little too used to your flattery - it’s strange to think... hm.” He shook his head. “It’s a remarkable impersonation and I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.”

“But it _is_ flattery, I assure you - the sincerest form, as they say,” Wataru said. “I copied everything in as much detail as I could, for after all I have the privilege of observing you so often, and up close, too!” And he drew nearer and touched Eichi’s hand, but Eichi still didn’t respond how he’d like. “Look, even my fingernails are the same length as yours, and I got shoes in your size, and - observe, here is the bruise on your arm from when you had your blood taken a few days ago, if I’m not mistaken,” he went on, twisting to show off each feature, hurrying to press their arms side by side. The tiny red-purple marks matched exactly, or as exactly as he could get them to with makeup. “And - and, Eichi, I can walk _and_ run in your gait, I'll prove it to you - ” He made as if to set off sprinting around the empty classroom. 

Eichi raised a hand to stop him, laughing a little. “All right, I believe you, so please. I’d rather not see myself running pell-mell around the room in third person.” Wataru was trying a little too hard now, making a fool of himself (of course) and Eichi realised it too. Finally they shared a proper smile. “Of course your imitation is flawless,” he said, and he reached out and touched Wataru’s face with the tips of his fingers, careful not to disturb the layers of makeup while brushing artificial blond hair out of his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re even better at being me than I am.”

“That’s impossible, Eichi,” Wataru insisted. “By definition, you’re perfect at being you.” And Eichi had laughed again, and found a smart way to contradict him.

And then soon after Keito saw through his disguise after a mere few lines of conversation, making it a moot point. Because of course there was still so much he didn't know - so much left for him to discover, if he was lucky. That day, he clung in the shade of the highest windowsill for a few heartbeats longer than strictly necessary, listening to the breathless peal of Eichi's laugh ringing out from the rooftop, and Keito's voice too, rising impatiently to match it.

There are other things that match. When the Student Council room is out of teabags one day: Eichi smiles down at the empty tin he's discovered, maybe excited to take a break from his work. "I'll go raid the Tea Club's supplies, so does anyone want a specific blend? We have lots of varieties." 

"Yes, get more of that dried fruit stuff," Keito replies absently. Dried fruit blends are also Eichi's favourite. The two of them might be the only ones in the room who really care about the type of tea they drink, though Tori is doing his best to learn to appreciate the different flavours (and so is Wataru, privately). 

Eichi probably would’ve gotten some fruit tea anyway, Wataru knows, and in fact he’s been having fun making up his own blends of the different fruits and getting people to try them, but he still gives Keito a dirty look for that choice. "Wouldn't you rather have something less sweet? I recently imported a rare type of lotus tea - how about trying something that suits your image a bit better?"

Keito hums, still absorbed in his work. "If you want. You may as well get both." 

Eichi rolls his eyes and goes. Wataru follows him out, curious about the matter, but the only thing Eichi will say is _Keito is such an annoying guy, isn’t he,_ which he has no choice but to agree with, really.

En route Eichi is making pretty good time so Wataru decides to pull ahead of him by taking a slide down the banister in one deserted stairwell - with a few extra seconds' head start maybe he can prepare an especially nice trick. 

Eichi stops to watch him. "That looks fun," he calls down through the twist in the steps. 

"It is!" Wataru shouts back, even as he makes a neat landing on the linoleum, arms spread wide. "Would you care to try it for yourself?"

Eichi laughs. "I'll pass, thank you. Watching is enough." That’s unexpected. "You know, you reminded me of a fun story - did I ever tell you about the time I almost died and it _wasn't_ due to my illness?"

Wataru stuffs the beginnings of the magic trick back into his jacket as Eichi catches up to him, not wanting to derail things. "Do go on." _Fun story_ \- he still can’t help but wonder if the way Eichi makes light of his own mortality is another part of his façade, or if it’s real levity after a lifetime of desensitisation to the idea. 

“Well, at the Tenshouin mansion there are a great many staircases, grand and sweeping with huge polished wooden banisters… probably exactly like what you’re picturing in your head right now. This is a story from when I was just a boy, and back then - and now too - I was only ever supposed to use the elevators; stairs were far too much to handle for such a weak child. But one day I figured out how to ride the banisters down from the top floors, and realised it was a good way to make my nurses panic, not to mention escape their watchful eyes for a few moments. They had to cart down all my life support equipment after me, you see.”

Eichi chuckles to himself. “But obviously the best person to use this trick on was Keito. I ordered the servants to move our playroom to the top floor so I'd have more chances to do it. Eventually he’d get nervous and glare at me every time we passed a stairwell, and he’d grip my hand if he really thought I was going to make a break for it. _Very_ cute.” 

“And if I decided to slide down - fufu, ‘give him the slip’ you could say - he’d dutifully run down every last step after me, all while shouting a lecture at the top of his lungs. Once we spent a whole day like that - he’d make me promise not to do it again as we rode back up in the elevator, and I’d promise harder every time, but…” and he shakes his head and laughs even more. 

“Why, it sounds like you were even worse of a scoundrel at that age than I,” Wataru says appreciatively. They’ve reached the school kitchens now, and Eichi begins easily sorting through the boxes and tins on the shelf reserved for the Tea Club.

“I was the worst,” Eichi agrees. “I caused Keito, and everyone, a lot of unnecessary trouble… and that day, the last time I tried it, I slipped off the banister and fell almost two floors straight down. Maybe I experienced what it would be like to be a sinner falling straight into Hell? It was exhilarating - definitely one of the highlights of my early childhood.” His voice has gone soft and distant by now, like he’s fully absorbed in the story. Wataru eyes him. Really, is he being sincere or not? 

”I’m sure it was terribly scary for Keito. Or maybe he would have told me I had it coming, I don’t know - I was fortuitous enough to pass out after hitting the ground, from shock rather than any serious injury, and he didn't come to see me for a week or two after that… I never apologised, of course,” he says, quieter.

Leant against the counter watching, Wataru doesn’t miss how he hovers his hand over the lotus tea packet for a long moment, considering it silently, before he withdraws it and shuts the cupboard. 

A few days later, he’s helping Keito carry some files down to the archives (yes, once in a while he does do things for the student council other than clutter the room with flowers and foliage, though both he and Keito continue to act exactly as if he doesn’t) and, remembering the story, he decides to take the banister again.

He didn’t really need Eichi's story to deduce that Keito would respond badly to that. “Hibiki - if you slip off that thing and fall straight into Hell I’m not saving you!” comes the yell, and the echoing click of his footsteps speeds up.

Wataru cackles. “That’s exactly how Eichi described the incident too!” Neat landing again, plastic tub of files balanced perfectly on his head. “But I’m sure you’re aware by now that I can survive a fall from _any_ height.” 

“I know you can’t, that time was obviously a trick somehow.” Keito catches up with him, giving him a clear-eyed glare. “Eichi described what now?”

“The time he decided to torture you all day by sliding down banisters, and then fell off halfway? Indeed, it was a perfectly lovable anecdote!”

“That’s how he described it, is it?” Keito smiles, unexpectedly. “I remember he was trying so hard to distract me that day - he’d stolen some tiny thing from me, a sort of pen, and I think he lost it or broke it. I don’t know why he didn’t think to have a new one bought.”

“Oh dear. Though I had thought such a thing unthinkable, it seems the young Eichi was even cuter than I had imagined. Ah, I may cry.”

“He was a troublesome brat," Keito says firmly.

“You must have been terribly upset when he fell,” Wataru prompts.

“Obviously. I thought I would be holding my first funeral a good few years earlier than planned; nobody wants that." Oh, yes, obviously. "Then after I realised he was going to be fine, I was just upset that I had no one to play with," Keito adds ruefully. "Eichi's household wouldn't blame _me_ for a thing back then, but my own parents did, and I did nothing but clean the temple for a week."

At this point they finally reach the archives. The differences between the way they tell the tale is so very endearing, Wataru muses. He wishes that he could find out more about all their stories, see the full picture of what happened - no, he thinks, he wishes he'd been _there._ That he could have shown Eichi a thousand more entertaining avenues of mischief than sliding down banisters, and gotten a thousand more lectures from Keito for his troubles. It would be lovely to have such happy and childish memories to look back on.

Well, he can certainly show Eichi plenty of mischief in the present day, and the lectures go without saying. For a quiet moment, lost among the thousands of dusty files and shelves' worth of records, he dares to wonder if he'll be around someday to hear Eichi retell their high-school exploits in such a fond, romantic way; to hear Keito fill in the embarrassing omissions without realising; and to be able to add his own version of the story, too.

\---

It surely starts with surprises on overly peaceful days, with sweet tastes and bitter arguments. To be fair, it probably doesn't start with today. But.

“Hello, hello, and a very good evening to you all! This is everyone’s very own Wataru Hibiki, and he is here to serve you some refreshments…!” Eichi’s heart skips a beat that his doctors would not be happy about as Wataru emerges radiantly, not from the window, the door, the ceiling or the ventilation shaft this time, but from underneath the table. And rather than conjuring anything, he simply pulls forward a service trolley that had been sitting unnoticed in the corner of the room and whips off the cover to reveal a modest rainbow of different cakes and sweets. “Amazing!”

“Oh! Nicely done, Wataru. Very different to your usual style - although that _is_ your style, I suppose,” Eichi says. He sets down his pen, happy to sit and watch Wataru for a moment. “What's the occasion?”

“Do I require an occasion?” Wataru asks, glancing over his shoulder with a flashed smile as he dispenses desserts to the rest of the Student Council. It's such a mundane job, but he still fulfils it with style and grace. Plates spin weightlessly off his fingertips. 

“Fufu. You don't; every day I share with you is worthy of celebration, in my opinion.” 

Wataru's flash of a smile widens to a glowing beam for a moment, and Eichi beams right back. He just barely hears Mao mutter an _Oh jeez_ to Tori under his breath as Tori shakes his head sadly, and has to cover his mouth to stop himself laughing. Wataru has no such restraint, and doles out another slice of cake to both of them while cackling. 

He reaches Eichi last, presenting him with the expected tea and cake along with a beautiful, intricate macaron decorated like a blue rose garden. Wataru smiles at him with a not-quite-disguised eagerness that makes Eichi think he should eat it first. Sure enough, there's a surprise - when he bites into it, the insides of the roses are red. 

“You remembered another of my pointless little anecdotes,” he says wonderingly. 

“But of course. I enjoy your stories very much, Eichi.” Wataru hops on to his favourite spot on Eichi's desk, swinging his legs back and forth. 

Eichi smiles up at him. “I suppose I ought to tell you some more, then.”

_“No_ you oughtn't,” comes a voice from the other side of Wataru. “Stick to your work, Eichi. Stop getting distracted by these random intrusions.”

_“Random intrusions?”_ Wataru clutches his chest and conveniently falls backward so that Eichi has a line of sight to pout at Keito. 

“You're being awfully rude to the person who came and served you chocolate cake, Keito,” he points out. It always bothers him how little tolerance his right hand has for his left - why shouldn't his two favourite people get along?

“I didn't ask for it. I didn't ask for _any_ of this,” Keito says darkly. “Hibiki has been disturbing our workflow with these visits lately. I don't know about you lot, but I find it impossible to concentrate with a disaster perpetually taking place a metre or two away from me.”

“Oh - is that the issue? I'll do my best to blend in from now on, then - ” and Wataru flips up to his feet, mimes pulling out a chair at the desk next to Eichi, and sits on the thin air, grinning happily.

Keito stares at him for a long second. “Just get out.”

Wataru stares back. Then he inclines his head towards the door. “Just get out.”

“Excuse me?”

Wataru gasps. _“Excuse_ me!?”

“Wh-” Keito stops.

“Wh…” Wataru savours the airy syllable the same way Eichi is now savouring his cake.

“Can both of you shut up and let me eat cake in peace? Even I don't act this childish!” shrills Tori in the background. He’s lucky Yuzuru wasn’t here to witness that - but it’s true, this is terribly childish. 

"All right, you two. One Keito is already enough of a handful, I don’t need another,” Eichi says, trying to sound suitably placating and responsible in front of his Student Council (though obviously the main point of his words was goading Keito).

“Hmph. I’d think two of me would still be less trouble than even one of Hibiki,” Keito mutters, nudging his glasses up his nose - and Wataru, with a tremendous flourish, pushes up an invisible pair of glasses up on his own face with perfectly identical timing. Keito glares at that only to find Wataru glaring straight back. Eichi suddenly remembers Wataru, reminding him earnestly that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and has to suppress another laugh.

“Hibiki,” Keito says. His body language doesn’t match his deeply irritated tone of voice at all: leaning forward easily and still holding his unused fork in one hand. “If you really want to blend in, just sit down - on a _chair_ \- and eat cake with the rest of us, why don’t you.” This surprises Eichi for just a moment before it makes him smile. Keito has always been so scrupulously fair with people, no matter how much trouble they might cause him. 

Maybe Eichi’s two hands are getting along better than he’d thought - maybe he really can have his cake and eat it (so to speak) after all. That would surely be the sweetest surprise of all.

He settles back, pleased, and finally takes the first sip of his tea - and stops. 

“Wataru… is this by any chance lotus tea?”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a lot of fun to write and I hope it was fun to read too! As always, my twitter handle is @goldgust, feel free to hmu about Enstars there anytime~


End file.
